This invention relates to semiconductor devices and the manufacture thereof and, in particular, to semiconductor processing employing silicides.
Polysilicon has conventionally been employed for gates and interconnections in integrated circuits. However, for small geometry, high speed integrated circuits it is desirable to use alternative materials with lower resistivity, such as silicide materials. The resistivity of polysilicon is high (1000 .mu..OMEGA.cm) and roughly fifty times larger than some silicides, for example titanium disilicide has a resistivity of 20 .mu..OMEGA.cm, and thus interconnections of polysilicon are extremely resistive in fine-line circuits. The propagational delay of electrical signals in such interconnect lines is a function of the product of the lumped capacitance and resistance of the interconnect line. As devices sizes are scaled down to achieve higher packing densities and speeds, this delay becomes dominated by the resistive component and thus new materials must be used. Silicides comprise such alternative materials which can be entirely compatible with the other components of the manufacturing process. Provided that the introduction of the material does not significantly perturb the existing process, the advantage of the new material can also be exploited in present day technologies.
A process has been developed whereby the silicide is formed by interdiffusing a layer of metal (tungsten, molybdenum, titanium, tantalum, etc.) with a sheet of doped polysilicon used to form the conventional gate and interconnects. This heterogeneous layer is then etched to form the gate and interconnects of the device. However, because the silicide overlying the doped polysilicon etches at different rates from the polysilicon, some undesirable undercutting at the gate occurs.
An alternative process has been developed to silicide the gate and diffused regions, however this is a complex process.
The undercutting problems of the first mentioned process and the complexity of the second represent considerable barriers to the implementation of silicide into an existing process.